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 Posted:   Mar 16, 2014 - 6:50 PM   
 By:   philiperic   (Member)

the Imperial Family of Ethopia claims its origin directly from the offspring of the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon ...

according to the Kebra Negast(The Glory of Kings) - an ancient compilation of Ethopian legends, Solomon is said to have seduced the Queen of Sheba(aka Mekeda) and sired her son who became Menelik I , the first Emperor of Ethopia .

the tradition that the Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethopia + visited King Solomon in Ancient Israel is supported by 1st Century Roman(from Jewish) historian, Josephus, who identifies her as "Queen of Egypt & Ethopia".

Josephus is also one of the extra Biblical sources that DeMille cites for his screenplay of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. I wonder where he found an actual source for the central triangle of TTC between Moses, Neferteri and Ramses. Or maybe he used "dramtic license"?


Yes, that's why I said, 'unless you're a Coptic'. The legends of Ethiopia. But even they, maybe ESPECIALLY they, would be offended by the notion that she tried to corrupt him with a '50s fertility dance. Josephus' 'Antiquities of the Jews' is what DeMille claims he used.

You'll find there the early legends about Moses being a general, who conquered Ethiopia for the Pharaoh using an army with baskets of snakes, and then marrying the Ethiopian Queen and bringing her back to Egypt. DeMille used that in his opening scenes.
These legends are also in many old Jewish commentaries, and exist also in occult and alchemical literature through the middle ages. They're just legends. DeMille is no benchmark anyhow...
BUT ... whether you go with the legend or not, you need to respect the material. You can do stuff with Sheba's personal life. but you can't do stuff with the Temple being wrecked after a cheesecake dance.






Why not? I have seen no contemporary religious criticism of any kind which objected to this sequence the way you do . Do you think the only way to make a Biblical film is to be 100% faithful to what is written in the Bible ? If so, you will find few if any Hollywood Biblical epics that adhere to that rule .

you have so much disdain for S&S's so-called "50s fertility(or cheesecake) dance" - why exactly ?I don't find it to be any more offensive than countless other similar pagan dancing or vamping by leading ladies or dancing girls in numerous other such films. At the very least, it did produce an exciting muscial sequence by Nascimbene .

And what's this about every schoolboy would know about the destruction of the temple being SO wrong? I was a schoolboy in '60 and nothing was ever taught us about this subject in school or church or at home.I dont understand your wrath over this piece of fiction being so incredibly offensive - some of it is allegorical , like it or not. The eclipse(an invention not in the Gospels) in BARABBAS you term "a metaphor for the darkening of the soul" but perhaps King Vidor meant the destruction of the Temple to be a similar metaphor for Solomon.

You've variously described this film (which you have never been able to sit through),as ,among other things - "out and out garbage in EVERY respect", "cheese porn", "out and out shite", "a crock","vomit", "dumb..hooey", "cheap adolescent tat", and "bollocks of a nonsense". Are you sure you have no more colorful epithets to describe it? You also said in reference to S&S -"Everyone's entitled to their taste or lack of it". That sums up what you think of anyone who enjoys it.

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 11:13 AM   
 By:   WILLIAMDMCCRUM   (Member)

Why are you so bothered about what I think?



Why not? I have seen no contemporary religious criticism of any kind which objected to this sequence the way you do . Do you think the only way to make a Biblical film is to be 100% faithful to what is written in the Bible ? If so, you will find few if any Hollywood Biblical epics that adhere to that rule .


You've obviously never read any other posts about biblibal epics that I've made over the years.

I can't convey this. You either get it or you don't. There are correct, good, meaningful ways to telescope events and make symbolic and allegorical allusions in film, and there's exploitative tat. There's stuff that keeps the genre fresh and alive, and there's 'take the box-office and run' cynicism that finishes the genre. The more you're into 'allegory', the less you'll like this film actually. Carl Jung this one isn't!




you have so much disdain for S&S's so-called "50s fertility(or cheesecake) dance" - why exactly ?I don't find it to be any more offensive than countless other similar pagan dancing or vamping by leading ladies or dancing girls in numerous other such films. At the very least, it did produce an exciting muscial sequence by Nascimbene .


Yes, they're all crap. I remember a cleverly exotic and authentic dance in 'David and Bathsheba' and the cleverly tasteful Nubian dance in 'Ben-Hur', but for the most part that sort of thing dates far quicker than anything else. The dance routines in 'Jason and the Argonauts' were embarrassing.




And what's this about every schoolboy would know about the destruction of the temple being SO wrong? I was a schoolboy in '60 and nothing was ever taught us about this subject in school or church or at home.I dont understand your wrath over this piece of fiction being so incredibly offensive - some of it is allegorical , like it or not.


Very good. You didn't know. That's how they pulled the fast one with the screenplay. They counted on that. You can use artistic licence in many ways, but not with the central big stuff.



The eclipse(an invention not in the Gospels) in BARABBAS you term "a metaphor for the darkening of the soul" but perhaps King Vidor meant the destruction of the Temple to be a similar metaphor for Solomon.


The destruction of the Temple, symbolically, comes from Daniel and the 'Abomination of Desolation' that sits in the 'Most Holy Place'. The destructions (by Babylonians and later Vespasian) were big historical events, traumas even. If this is a 'metaphor for Solomon', then what is Solomon a metaphor for? Play the game truly. No, it's an excuse for a lot of soft-porn in a repressed decade, with the obligatory rap on the knuckles to keep the DeMille daddy (a clergyman) happy whilst still having 'fun'. As I say, I haven't seen the Theda Bara version, but I know it was ludicrous, and had absurd chariot racing in a Roman circus (!!!) and I have a suspicion that they rehashed THAT screenplay for the new one.

Nonetheless, if you found the story very spiritually uplifting and helped you in life, I'm very happy for you. I'm sort of betting you didn't though.







You've variously described this film (which you have never been able to sit through),as ,among other things - "out and out garbage in EVERY respect", "cheese porn", "out and out shite", "a crock","vomit", "dumb..hooey", "cheap adolescent tat", and "bollocks of a nonsense". Are you sure you have no more colorful epithets to describe it? You also said in reference to S&S -"Everyone's entitled to their taste or lack of it". That sums up what you think of anyone who enjoys it.


Yes, I'm the evil one with the haughty airs etc.. Or just maybe I'm the normal guy who deigns to say the thing that most normal guys wouldn't bother wasting their time on ....

But if you wanted, say, (and I don't: I don't care) the genre of epics to be resurrected in this age of CGI etc., well, this sort of film only buries the chances of that. As I said, there were only ever a few good examples of this type of film from that era. Had there been more, we might have seen many more today.

I've never heard the film praised anywhere.

By the way, much as I respect Mario Nascimbene, the 'dance sequence' is not a great composition. A simple drum ostinato (which he resorted to too often) a statement of the main theme on woodwinds, a five chord choral repeat, and .... repeat signs. Why is it called 'Rha-Gon' by the way on the album? Not a Canaanite deity for sure.

Maybe they were hoping for a hit dance craze. 'Hey, guys ... get a load of Wilma over there: she's up on the table doing the Rha-Gon. We gotta get her for the frat ball ...'

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 11:37 AM   
 By:   Grecchus   (Member)

Isn't The Prodigal an example of dusting off the NIV for some belly button hokum? Great score by Kaper, by the way.

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 11:46 AM   
 By:   WILLIAMDMCCRUM   (Member)

Isn't The Prodigal an example of dusting off the NIV for some belly button hokum? Great score by Kaper, by the way.


Oh, that one was the pits.

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 12:00 PM   
 By:   Grecchus   (Member)

Oh, that one was the pits.

I had to laugh, William. Is there no redeeming aspect to these bib umbilicals? They strike me as at least being plausible as possible outcomes somewhere in the spacetime manifolds that stretch the fabric of the universe to laminar thickness - even at the flimsiest points. smile

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 12:35 PM   
 By:   WILLIAMDMCCRUM   (Member)


I had to laugh, William. Is there no redeeming aspect to these bib umbilicals? They strike me as at least being plausible as possible outcomes somewhere in the spacetime manifolds that stretch the fabric of the universe to laminar thickness - even at the flimsiest points. smile




We should really be talking about Nascimbene here, since surely that was the OP's intent, but we don't seem to be!

They all have a huge team of people behind them, and usually some do their jobs better than others. Costumes, music, hair, make-up, set design, lighting, cinematography, directors, writers, actors, effects, props, research ... you name it, some will be good, some awful, like the curate's egg, even inside one film. And some will be authentic, others more stylised.

But if the underlining philosophy of the film is up the chute, then so is the whole ship, and sometimes that happens. It starts on paper.

A film can 'get it right' and still not be successful in terms of expectations, like Huston's 'The Bible: In the Beginning'. Then again it can be complete hokum, but relevant in a sort of contemporary way and redeem itself, like DeMille's 'Samson and Delilah'. Or it can be terrible, like 'Sodom and Gomorrah' or S&S.

It surely CAN be done. But the hardest part is to take Old Testament stuff particularly and throw it up for a modern audience. It takes great skill.

With Solomon, there's a problem from the start. The whole deal is that he was 'wise', eventually disllusioned, and of course (as the Elohistic and Yahwistic writers like to remind us) he was 'led astray by foreign women', and had a helluva lot of wives. He imported chariots and horses from Egypt, some (not many) think he wrote a few proverbs, and was visited by the Shebans on a trade mission. No-one is even QUITE sure where Sheba was .... His mum was Bathsheba, after that unfortunate incident was all redeemed....

Other than that, it's political intrigues, holding onto the throne, and building a Temple. It's hard to get a, say, feministic plot out of this great lothario.

But the temple was wrecked twice (and ransacked a few other times) by armies. It was never flattened by God in an earthquake. You just don't DO stuff like that, and expect to get away with it. And as far as 'allegory' goes, the only allegory in the thing is that, if you run off after bad girls, they'll lead you astray. I suppose that could wreck your temple....

What's needed is a movie about the prophets and the first exile, before, during and after. Then you can sink your teeth into all this stuff PROPERLY.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 1:05 PM   
 By:   philiperic   (Member)

Why are you so bothered about what I think?



Why not? I have seen no contemporary religious criticism of any kind which objected to this sequence the way you do . Do you think the only way to make a Biblical film is to be 100% faithful to what is written in the Bible ? If so, you will find few if any Hollywood Biblical epics that adhere to that rule .


You've obviously never read any other posts about biblibal epics that I've made over the years.

I can't convey this. You either get it or you don't. There are correct, good, meaningful ways to telescope events and make symbolic and allegorical allusions in film, and there's exploitative tat. There's stuff that keeps the genre fresh and alive, and there's 'take the box-office and run' cynicism that finishes the genre. The more you're into 'allegory', the less you'll like this film actually. Carl Jung this one isn't!




you have so much disdain for S&S's so-called "50s fertility(or cheesecake) dance" - why exactly ?I don't find it to be any more offensive than countless other similar pagan dancing or vamping by leading ladies or dancing girls in numerous other such films. At the very least, it did produce an exciting muscial sequence by Nascimbene .


Yes, they're all crap. I remember a cleverly exotic and authentic dance in 'David and Bathsheba' and the cleverly tasteful Nubian dance in 'Ben-Hur', but for the most part that sort of thing dates far quicker than anything else. The dance routines in 'Jason and the Argonauts' were embarrassing.




And what's this about every schoolboy would know about the destruction of the temple being SO wrong? I was a schoolboy in '60 and nothing was ever taught us about this subject in school or church or at home.I dont understand your wrath over this piece of fiction being so incredibly offensive - some of it is allegorical , like it or not.


Very good. You didn't know. That's how they pulled the fast one with the screenplay. They counted on that. You can use artistic licence in many ways, but not with the central big stuff.



The eclipse(an invention not in the Gospels) in BARABBAS you term "a metaphor for the darkening of the soul" but perhaps King Vidor meant the destruction of the Temple to be a similar metaphor for Solomon.


The destruction of the Temple, symbolically, comes from Daniel and the 'Abomination of Desolation' that sits in the 'Most Holy Place'. The destructions (by Babylonians and later Vespasian) were big historical events, traumas even. If this is a 'metaphor for Solomon', then what is Solomon a metaphor for? Play the game truly. No, it's an excuse for a lot of soft-porn in a repressed decade, with the obligatory rap on the knuckles to keep the DeMille daddy (a clergyman) happy whilst still having 'fun'. As I say, I haven't seen the Theda Bara version, but I know it was ludicrous, and had absurd chariot racing in a Roman circus (!!!) and I have a suspicion that they rehashed THAT screenplay for the new one.

Nonetheless, if you found the story very spiritually uplifting and helped you in life, I'm very happy for you. I'm sort of betting you didn't though.







You've variously described this film (which you have never been able to sit through),as ,among other things - "out and out garbage in EVERY respect", "cheese porn", "out and out shite", "a crock","vomit", "dumb..hooey", "cheap adolescent tat", and "bollocks of a nonsense". Are you sure you have no more colorful epithets to describe it? You also said in reference to S&S -"Everyone's entitled to their taste or lack of it". That sums up what you think of anyone who enjoys it.


Yes, I'm the evil one with the haughty airs etc.. Or just maybe I'm the normal guy who deigns to say the thing that most normal guys wouldn't bother wasting their time on ....

But if you wanted, say, (and I don't: I don't care) the genre of epics to be resurrected in this age of CGI etc., well, this sort of film only buries the chances of that. As I said, there were only ever a few good examples of this type of film from that era. Had there been more, we might have seen many more today.

I've never heard the film praised anywhere.

By the way, much as I respect Mario Nascimbene, the 'dance sequence' is not a great composition. A simple drum ostinato (which he resorted to too often) a statement of the main theme on woodwinds, a five chord choral repeat, and .... repeat signs. Why is it called 'Rha-Gon' by the way on the album? Not a Canaanite deity for sure.

Maybe they were hoping for a hit dance craze. 'Hey, guys ... get a load of Wilma over there: she's up on the table doing the Rha-Gon. We gotta get her for the frat ball ...'


I certainly cannot debate you on your level of theological knowledge of what you feel is proper use of the Bible in films. You are obviouly quite serious about all this and fail to appreciate certain Biblical films as simple entertainment , aside from any redeaming intellectual or spiritual values.

I appreciate your point of view( and your humour- lets do the Ragon!) and even how you express it (you must be English - Im only on my Mum's side) - I just dont share it. I offered some reasons why I thought the filmmakers made some of their choices in S+S - you apparently don't believe that makes any difference. Oh well, I tried. ( and forgive me I also enjoyed SODOM AND GOMORRAH!!)

I was quite young when I saw S+S the first time ( how old were you ?) And now 50 +years later , I see many flaws in films I enjoyed from my childhood - but I still have a fondness for them - that's why I defend them.

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 1:08 PM   
 By:   Grecchus   (Member)

We've had prohets galore and the first exile. It seems to me that bible stories translated to screen as literal interpretation will offend at all points of the compass. The new Noah film, for instance, seems to be having a few difficulties.

I suppose that is why films like World War Z can get away with biblical scale tales of the apocalypse. They don't attach themselves to any specific ideas that may offend in terms of home truths although, having just seen it, the 'temptation' on the part of the film-makers to visit the scene of the book is too tempting an opportunity to miss.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 5:06 PM   
 By:   pp312   (Member)

Philiperic, let me say that while I'm no S & S fan, I sympathise with you in the current debate. What you get out of a film you get out of it. Clearly the scriptwriters of S & S were less concerned with written history than with telling an interesting story and creating a certain atmosphere, and clearly for some they succeeded in that. The irony here is that the writers of the Bible were themselves less concerned with actual physical truth than with imparting spiritual truths, which to them had a far greater reality than physical/historical reality. In that sense--and I don't think I'm drawing too long a bow here--the writers of S & S were only following in their footsteps. They wanted to create an atmosphere, a sense of reverence and longing for the spirirtual (plus of course turn a profit, but that's a necessary pre-condition) , even if it meant bending history a little.

Clearly it's easy to take popular entertainment too seriously, to let erudition spoil our childlike enjoyment of a good story entertainingly told. Maybe some of us, as they say in the classics, need to lighten up.

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 8:01 PM   
 By:   WILLIAMDMCCRUM   (Member)

We've had prohets galore and the first exile.



Grecchus, can you name one?

Even one? I dare you. There are two films about Esther, that's it. And that recent garbage reduced the exile to a Daniel and lions' den story that just had NO content.


The first exile is after the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians, when Judah was invaded by Babylon, and Israel in the north by Assyria, with hideous atrocities. And there's a massive build-up to it, with prophets of various personality types getting generally ignored for several centuries. They still are, by the look of it!

It's from the era of the late kings of Judah and Israel, i.e. your Elijah/Elisha stories, the Jeremiah, Isaiah, episodes, the exile in Babylon (they've never had a proper go at Daniel), and the whole return thing in Ezra and Nehemiah: this is the very CORE of the Old Testament and its origins, the rest is retrospective, and it's not been filmed EVER. Not one mainstream or even non-mainstream treatment since Griffith's 'Intolerance'. All that stuff about exile, covenants, refugees, apocalytic archetypal prophecy.

There's NEVER been a movie on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi .... nor even one on poor old Job (that'd be an arthouse Samuel Becket job ...)


The reason you THINK there's been lots is because they've told you there were lots. All anyone ever cares about in movie terms is Genesis, Moses, Samson, and David. Sunday school tarted up a bit.

The thing's never been scratched. They all play follow the leader, which is why we're getting the fifth Moses epic of the talkie era, and not a single Daniel or Jeremiah. EVER. And it's not as though they aren't relevant. In a world of ethnic cleansing and fundamentalist wars, and invasions of eastern countries, not to mention the whole apocalyptic/ecology thing, materialism, transcendentalism, social justice etc., there's no shortage of relevance from that particular era.

The fact is, nobody knows the stuff any more.

There's a great movie to be made, with CGI visions and a really literate script, by using some basic telescoping artistic licence, having these prophets (or a good few of them) live at the same time, as a company against the zeitgeist (almost Musketeers when you think on it) facing all the evils of that time, most of which are still with us. Plus some archetypal redemptive myth thrown in. And maybe even a touch of Blake. And it can be very critical too, the prophets weren't all infallible.

Would they make it? Like hell.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 8:21 PM   
 By:   philiperic   (Member)

DP

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 8:33 PM   
 By:   philiperic   (Member)

We've had prohets galore and the first exile.



Grecchus, can you name one?

Even one? I dare you. There are two films about Esther, that's it. And that recent garbage reduced the exile to a Daniel and lions' den story that just had NO content.


The first exile is after the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians, when Judah was invaded by Babylon, and Israel in the north by Assyria, with hideous atrocities. And there's a massive build-up to it, with prophets of various personality types getting generally ignored for several centuries. They still are, by the look of it!

It's from the era of the late kings of Judah and Israel, i.e. your Elijah/Elisha stories, the Jeremiah, Isaiah, episodes, the exile in Babylon (they've never had a proper go at Daniel), and the whole return thing in Ezra and Nehemiah: this is the very CORE of the Old Testament and its origins, the rest is retrospective, and it's not been filmed EVER. Not one mainstream or even non-mainstream treatment since Griffith's 'Intolerance'. All that stuff about exile, covenants, refugees, apocalytic archetypal prophecy.

There's NEVER been a movie on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi .... nor even one on poor old Job (that'd be an arthouse Samuel Becket job ...)


The reason you THINK there's been lots is because they've told you there were lots. All anyone ever cares about in movie terms is Genesis, Moses, Samson, and David. Sunday school tarted up a bit.

The thing's never been scratched. They all play follow the leader, which is why we're getting the fifth Moses epic of the talkie era, and not a single Daniel or Jeremiah. EVER. And it's not as though they aren't relevant. In a world of ethnic cleansing and fundamentalist wars, and invasions of eastern countries, not to mention the whole apocalyptic/ecology thing, materialism, transcendentalism, social justice etc., there's no shortage of relevance from that particular era.

The fact is, nobody knows the stuff any more.

There's a great movie to be made, with CGI visions and a really literate script, by using some basic telescoping artistic licence, having these prophets (or a good few of them) live at the same time, as a company against the zeitgeist (almost Musketeers when you think on it) facing all the evils of that time, most of which are still with us. Plus some archetypal redemptive myth thrown in. And maybe even a touch of Blake. And it can be very critical too, the prophets weren't all infallible.

Would they make it? Like hell.


You are absolutely right , William - there are so many Bible stories that filmmakers have ignored or done poorly.

My favorite is the story of Daniel - in grad school, I wrote a play(really a screenplay) entitled DANIEL IN BABYLON - it focuses on the exiles - Daniel and his three friends - being captives of the Babylonians- and climaxed with them being thrown into the fiery furnace where a "Son of God" appeared and saved them. I had a couple of female characters added to story for pagan love( a sultry high priestess - shades of THE PRODIGAL - falls in love with Daniel). It had potential I thought - visually this tale could be amazing. But I only got a "B". :-)

 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 8:35 PM   
 By:   WILLIAMDMCCRUM   (Member)

Go for it Phileric.

Think how much better you could do it now ....

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 17, 2014 - 11:32 PM   
 By:   pp312   (Member)

My favorite is the story of Daniel - in grad school, I wrote a play(really a screenplay) entitled DANIEL IN BABYLON - it focuses on the exiles - Daniel and his three friends - being captives of the Babylonians- and climaxed with them being thrown into the fiery furnace where a "Son of God" appeared and saved them. I had a couple of female characters added to story for pagan love( a sultry high priestess - shades of THE PRODIGAL - falls in love with Daniel). It had potential I thought - visually this tale could be amazing. But I only got a "B". :-)

I'm waiting for a biblical film where the scriptwriter DOESN'T add in a sultry priestess for pagan love. Now that really would be revolutionary.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 18, 2014 - 1:03 AM   
 By:   philiperic   (Member)

My favorite is the story of Daniel - in grad school, I wrote a play(really a screenplay) entitled DANIEL IN BABYLON - it focuses on the exiles - Daniel and his three friends - being captives of the Babylonians- and climaxed with them being thrown into the fiery furnace where a "Son of God" appeared and saved them. I had a couple of female characters added to story for pagan love( a sultry high priestess - shades of THE PRODIGAL - falls in love with Daniel). It had potential I thought - visually this tale could be amazing. But I only got a "B". :-)

I'm waiting for a biblical film where the scriptwriter DOESN'T add in a sultry priestess for pagan love. Now that really would be revolutionary.


There has to be a love interest in all stories , doesnt there?
I readily admit the pagan priestess was cribbed from films like THE STORY OF RUTH, THE PRODIGAL and THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES -- not very original.

William, I think that the basic story from Daniel would make an exciting, colorful narrative - There is a 2006 movie Ive never seen(who has?). My old manuscript would need some extensive rewriting -- I prefer to act or direct , not write scripts -

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 18, 2014 - 2:46 AM   
 By:   pp312   (Member)

There has to be a love interest in all stories , doesnt there?


Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, 2001, Alien, Aliens, The Thing, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan....

Personally I hate love stories in movies just as much as I did when I as 8. I've just accommodated myself to them a little more.

 
 Posted:   Mar 18, 2014 - 9:41 AM   
 By:   Grecchus   (Member)

First off William, you are entirely correct. My knowledge of biblical turning points is next to zilch. And again, I take it as correct about The Bible being reduced to a worn out stereotype. To be perfectly honest, the older I get, the more nonsensical the roots of humanity become. Let's be honest, the things that have happened since the turn of the 20th century completely bury the past in one very real sense - that is the sheer volume of events closer to our own lifetimes that have taken place might just as well carry the same mythological significance as anything from the time of Abraham. And paradoxically, if our own witnessed events were to be written down for tribes from 4 thousand years ago to comprehend, not only would they not believe them were it possible to convey the future to the past, they'd also have an impossible time trying to understand them within a framework of their own reality-stretched mythology.

Edit: There's a version on YouTube which has been truncated so that both main and end titles are not featured. The film appears to be restored so that if taken purely as a costume epic, it does look very good. Of course, the alliance of Adonijah with the egyptians against his own brother does bear resemblance to events occuring subsequently in history: for instance, Tostig's alliance with Hardrada against Harold.

 
 Posted:   Mar 18, 2014 - 7:13 PM   
 By:   CH-CD   (Member)

The thing's never been scratched. They all play follow the leader, which is why we're getting the fifth Moses epic of the talkie era, and not a single Daniel or Jeremiah. EVER. And it's not as though they aren't relevant. In a world of ethnic cleansing and fundamentalist wars, and invasions of eastern countries, not to mention the whole apocalyptic/ecology thing, materialism, transcendentalism, social justice etc., there's no shortage of relevance from that particular era.


Well, I guess there hasn't been a movie covering these events......providing you don't count Columbia's 1953 opus...."Slaves of Babylon".




This dealt with, amongst other things ( in Hollywood's own, inevitable style, of course!):
The Exile, Daniel in the Lion's Den, King Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar ... and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

Oh!...and Richard Conte sporting a very silly wig !

It even had the obligatory Pagan Dancing Girl, in the shape of Julie Newmar.

Here she goes.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CXxe8Sx2LGY

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 18, 2014 - 8:16 PM   
 By:   pp312   (Member)

"See amazing love dances!"

Wow, I'd go a long way to see that. NOT!!

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 18, 2014 - 9:57 PM   
 By:   philiperic   (Member)

The thing's never been scratched. They all play follow the leader, which is why we're getting the fifth Moses epic of the talkie era, and not a single Daniel or Jeremiah. EVER. And it's not as though they aren't relevant. In a world of ethnic cleansing and fundamentalist wars, and invasions of eastern countries, not to mention the whole apocalyptic/ecology thing, materialism, transcendentalism, social justice etc., there's no shortage of relevance from that particular era.


Well, I guess there hasn't been a movie covering these events......providing you don't count Columbia's 1953 opus...."Slaves of Babylon".




This dealt with, amongst other things ( in Hollywood's own, inevitable style, of course!):
The Exile, Daniel in the Lion's Den, King Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar ... and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

Oh!...and Richard Conte sporting a very silly wig !

It even had the obligatory Pagan Dancing Girl, in the shape of Julie Newmar.

Here she goes.....



I never knew this film concerned the Book of Daniel. It sounds pretty bad --I might have a copy somewhere that I've never watched .
In the cast list, there are no actors listed playing Daniel's three friends - are you sure that the fiery furnace scene is in this?

 
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